You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile
by Christine M. Greenleaf
Summary: My annual monologue for Mark Hamill's birthday, narrated by the Clown Prince of Crime himself! Happy 66th birthday to the one and only Joker :-)


**You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile**

Do you ever just look at the world and wanna start screaming? I mean, look around! There's nothing but chaos, madness, and despair everywhere! Pick up a newspaper, turn on the TV, check out that social media thing that the young people love, the Facegram or the Instatweet! Everywhere people are acting like lunatics, lashing out at one another, spouting crazy talk, from the most insignificant loser trapped in his parents' basement to the leader of the free world! Statesmen, thinkers, actors, athletes, everyone we've been taught to admire, has suddenly lost their grip on sanity! There's violence in the streets, unrest and disaster everywhere, even the earth itself seems like it's just stopped caring, and is wiping away humanity in droves! It seems like order and sanity are in short supply, but let me let you in on a little secret – this ain't new. And if you're just realizing this, I wanna congratulate you for being slow on the uptake. Yes, the world is a madhouse. Yes, everyone in it is crazy as a loon. Yes, they always have been. It's just been made extra obvious right now for the stupid, slow-witted people at the back. You know, people like Batman. I can't imagine even he still believes in his pathetic notions of order and sanity, and how people are basically good anymore. But then it can be difficult to come to terms with reality when you're an adult male who dresses up in a bat costume and beats up the mentally ill every night. There are clearly bigger issues there than just being misguided.

Anyway, for those of you just joining my team, welcome to Joker's World! Now you might think from that introduction that my world is a pretty bleak place, but the truth is the exact opposite. You see, I've been a lunatic for a very long time, and I've been in close quarters with fellow lunatics for a very long time, locked up in a mental asylum. And I can tell you categorically that just because you've suddenly realized the world is crazy is no reason to be depressed. The only people who are miserable in a madhouse are the ones who think they shouldn't be in there, the ones who deny reality. Once you accept it, you can be truly happy. Acceptance is key to happiness – ask any shrink. And then there are those sad sacks who think that everything is meaningless, and that the world is an empty, horrible place – nihilists, I think they're called. I can't stand those jerks. They are so miserable all the time. I much prefer hedonism to nihilism, for instance - at least those people are happy. But I'm not a fan of isms, in general. To quote the great Ferris Bueller, a personal hero of mine, "Isms, in my opinion, are not good. A person should not believe in an ism, he should believe in himself."

Besides, just because nothing matters doesn't mean you have to be unhappy about it, or see existence as some futile, empty pursuit where every day is meaningless. Things don't have to have meaning to be fun. Where's the meaning in a whoopie cushion, for instance? Or a rubber chicken? What does a joke mean? In fact, trying to find meaning in a joke often ruins it – explaining a joke is practically the worst thing you can do in comedy. Well, that and racial slurs, rape jokes, homophobic jokes...in fact, there's a lot you can do wrong in comedy. Just like in life.

But people are taught that you have to have purpose, that you gotta have meaning, that life is precious and valuable and you shouldn't waste it. But that's a load of crap. Life is cheap – people are born and die by the thousands every day. Your life is insignificant – you're a single little microscopic speck on a remote world in a vast, uncaring universe. Nobody cares about your feelings or your hopes and your dreams. But like I said, don't let that get you down! Even though nobody else cares about you, _you_ can still care about you! And if the rest of the world doesn't care about you, you don't have to care about the rest of the world! It makes things so much simpler. Basically, when nothing means anything, you should just do whatever you want. And you know what most people want? To have fun.

Now again, fun isn't something that's the same for everyone. For some people, fun is killing people with plants, or whatever it is she does with them. For others, it's frightening people to death. For yet some others, it's stealing valuable antiques and riches from museums or unsuspecting billionaires. For people like Bruce Wayne, it's swanning around the world on private jets with beautiful women. And for some losers, it's even making up weird little riddles. Now I don't judge other people's definitions of fun, (except for the riddle thing – seriously, how lame can you get?) but I'm a simpler kinda guy. My definition of fun is jokes and laughter, pulling pranks on unsuspecting citizens and watching as they blow up in their faces, literally. There is nothing funnier than practical jokes, particularly slapstick comedy. It's very basic entertainment, and very meaningless, but it's crazy enjoyable. It's so funny that your cheeks hurt from smiling and your tears are streaming down your face with laughter, and if you ask me, that's what life's all about. That's when you truly feel alive, when you can laugh at the pain of someone else's death. Or, y'know, permanent maiming, because that's the end of their life as they know it, so that's pretty funny too.

I know a lotta people disagree with me. You survey a room of people, let's say a hundred hostages, and you're gonna get a hundred different responses about what fun is to them. You're also gonna get a few of them not filling out the survey form because they're too busy whining and sobbing and pleading for their lives, so you have to shoot 'em in the head because they're useless to you. But the other, say, eighty-five or so, are gonna give you eight-five different responses, mostly predictable. Like for some people, sex is pretty fun. And yeah, it is, particularly if you've got a wild little thing like my honey Harley Quinn. But you can't really dedicate your life solely to sex, as much as Harley wants me to. (I mean, seriously, who has the stamina for that?) For other people, fun is good food and drink, which again is pretty enjoyable at the time, but it's fleeting. So is money and relationships, fancy clothes and cars, basically all the answers people give as being fun are transitory. But in order to make fun the center of your life, you need to find a pleasure that doesn't fade. And comedy doesn't fade – there's always some new and fun gag you can pull, or some new joke you can invent, because comedy is all about change. It's about adapting and responding to the here and now. You just gotta be inventive, and comedy is never gonna let you down.

And let's face it, the one joke that never gets old is someone hitting someone else. Violence has been the foundation of all human interaction and entertainment from day one. Ever since the first caveman picked up a club and beat his friend to death, people have been laughing themselves silly over slapstick. You know why? Because violence is the ultimate punchline. Death is life's ultimate joke on us all, and there's nothing else you can do when faced with it but laugh.

People sometimes ask me why I'm always smiling. As usual with me, there's no single answer to that question, so you can pick whichever answer you like. Maybe it's because I'm fantastically endowed. Maybe it's because ever since some psycho in a bat costume pushed me into a vat of acid, it's a permanent effect of the chemicals and subsequent plastic surgery to fix it. Or maybe it's because I'm reminding you, and myself, of course, that life is one big joke. Maybe I'm grinning at you, laughing at your insane beliefs in order, logic, and reality. The clown always knows that the end of all our meaningless little performances is the final curtain of death, and that all we can really do is make the audience laugh while we're here. Or failing the audience, because they sometimes have no sense of humor, ourselves. So that's what I do. I smile because I'm amusing myself, thinking of that ultimate punchline, and how I help others to find it. You ever seen a skull? With my unnaturally pale complexion and permanent grin, I kinda resemble one, huh? Just think of me as your friendly and funny grim reaper, except without the whole black ensemble. Leave that to Batsy.

See, Batsy's the brooding one, the emo kid in your school who never grew up, who thinks that life is meaningless and therefore worthless. I think that's probably why he puts on a bat costume and beats people up – that's not only his idea of fun, it's his way of showing the world that life is horrible, scary, and painful, like getting attacked and beaten by a guy in a bat costume. He doesn't do these things purely for his own pleasure – he does them to make a point, to illustrate his inner pain or some crap like that. He is such a drama queen, if you ask me.

Me, I'm not big on making points, like I said. Jokes don't have points, and neither does life. I just do what makes me laugh. If Batsy took a page or two outta my book, he'd be a lot happier, and so would everyone. This world would be a better place if we all just accepted its insanity, and instead of worrying about it, just enjoyed it.

So don't worry the next time you read about something horrible going on in the world. Don't frown and cry and make yourself miserable over something you can't control anyway. When life gets you down, turn that frown around, and smile, darn ya. Smile.

 **The End**


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